Chapter 15
“Go!” Gideon ordered.
Kira slid the key card across the activation pad and the door materialized briefly before sliding upward into the wall revealing a second door leaning slightly inward.
“What shell?” Devon pushed lightly on the second door.
It moved easily!
Devon moved to shove the door aside when Gideon’s had grabbed his arm, “Gently Bull, we don’t want waste our advantage by letting them know we’re here.”
Kira crouched down and slipped a snake cam through the gap at the bottom.
“Looks like a storage warehouse.” She whispered.
Devon carefully grabbed the door and lifted it aside as he stepped through. “It’s just doors!”
They found themselves in an enormous, mostly empty warehouse. Leaning against the walls were several stack of doors, all identical and all matching the one they had just come through. Theirs was the only one lit, emitting a soft azure glow from around the door frame, but all were made from the same continuum lattice material.
“What do you make of it boss?” Rachel asked softly.
“Unsure,” Gideon had just stepped through the doorway, “but at least it seems relatively private.”
Garret stepped through behind Gideon, typically carrying a heavy automatic rifle he was always the last one through a breech. The moment he cleared the doorway it slid shut with a soft swish, its frame suddenly going dark.
“Check the card on the frame.” Gideon ordered.
Nothing.
“Shit!” Garret hissed.
“This might complicate our return trip.” Rachel whispered.
“Might?” Elena stepped back over to the door and began running her fingers around the edges of the frame, searching for some hidden switch or key.
“A problem for later,” Gideon looked at the exit, “for now we complete our mission. Recon, assess and explore. Make sure we know which door is ours and lets move out people.”
The team crossed to the exit door as Gideon pressed his ear against it. “Nothing, ready?”
Kira slid to the front and crouched as she reached for the doorknob. “On three.”
Devon moved into position on the left side of the door with Caleb at his right, both with rifles at the ready.
“One, Two,” Gideon whispered the countdown.
The door cracked open revealing an empty hallway, the team slid out into the open one by one. One side of the hall was lined with windows overlooking a large park while the other was devoid of anything except the storage room door. They silently crept along the hall toward a set of large glass doors at the end, they could see the lights on inside. Reaching the end they peered through the glass doors to see a balcony rail with a row of doors barely visible across from them.
“Clear.” Rachel whispered as the last person moved out of view.
Kira pushed the door open and the team slipped inside.
It was a square building and they were on the top floor, looking over the rail they saw rows of doors lining floors of balconies extending below them. Most of the doors were softly glowing with only a few per level that looked to be off, the team made their way around the square translating the door names as they went.
“Sol-Terra, Giana, Grid 3, what the hell are these?” Jaxson whispered.
“My guess is these are gates and the label is wherever they lead to,” Tessa offered, “did you see the plaque above the door we came through?”
Jaxson shrugged.
“Said Earth, one-six-eight.” Rachel laughed softly, “I thought we taught you to pay better attention?”
“So they’re torturing people in each one of these?” Kira whispered.
“Torture Central,” Gideon frowned, “noted. Let’s move out.”
“Wait.” Tessa had her goggles on and was looking across the expanse at a door one floor down. “That one says Earth, two five nine.”
“What?” Devon nearly forgot to whisper, “Which one?”
“It’s, uh…” Tessa scanned the far side trying to find an identifying mark that she could use to show them which door she was looking at but finally settled on counting them. “The twenty-third one from the corner, use your goggles and zoom in.”
“Great spot Wyvern!” Gideon softly exclaimed. “Now that our x-fil secured we can get back to the mission and find a way out of this hell hole.”
The team made their way back into the hall and past the storage room door to where the hallway turned sharply to the left.
“No heat signatures,” Tessa whispered, “I think we’re clear.”
Around the corner the hallway opened up into a large lobby and reception area, one wall was lined with windows overlooking a park while the rest was completely empty except a couple of vending machines and a desk that was a facing a set of large reinforced steel doors.
“Why does this feel less like reception and more like security?” Elena whispered.
“And does anyone else find it odd that we haven’t seen a single person the whole time we’ve been wandering the halls?” Garret asked.
“Weekend maybe?” Gideon said,
“Wonder where this leads.” Devon eased one of the Steele doors slightly open and looked out through the crack.
“What’d you see?” Caleb asked.
“Looks like an ally,” Devon said softly, “We’re at street level boss.”
“What?” Gideon asked incredulously. “If it’s clear, lets go.”
When they slipped through the door they found themselves not on the quiet little street bordered by a heavily forested park that they saw through the windows but rather a dimly lit alley, lined with dilapidated buildings littered with trash that had blown into the corners. It was dark, cold and the air was tinged with a combination of wood smoke and refuse.
“Where the hell are we?” Caleb asked.
“The Bronx?” Julian guessed.
“There, Miami, LA, they all look the same in neighborhoods like this.” Gideon said. “Lets get out of this alley and have a look around. Bull, point, Wyvern take the rear and see if you can find somewhere to post over watch.”
“My specialty!” Tessa smiled.
The team disappeared into the darkness, moving from alley to alley in complete silence as they searched the city.
“Nothing but empty buildings.” Jaxson commented.
“With no idea of where we are or what this city looks like we are exposed and wandering blind.” Gideon admitted. “We need to find somewhere secure and get the drone in the air to have a look around.”
“Nothing but empty flat top buildings boss,” Devon laughed, “take your pick.”
“Looks like a tall one on the next block.” Rachel offered.
“Move out.” Gideon ordered.
They made it to the target building and up to the roof without seeing a single living creature. The darkness was eerie, still and cold with a slight dampness clinging to the air the way water does to a sponge.
“Drone’s up,” Caleb announced, “view should be in your HUD.”
As the drone ascended the view from its high resolution camera was shocking as a scene of complete desolation filled their view. Empty, abandon buildings lined the streets and alleys painting a picture of a city that was rapidly evacuated, leaving papers strewn in the streets after blowing out of open windows, cars sat silently and unused in driveways and parking structures and rows and rows of houses that used to be pods of happy families stepping through life. As the drone reached higher a soft glow showed up in the distance, Caleb steered the drone toward it.
The dense city-scape began to dot with trees, then the buildings started thinning and a few empty parks showed up, each abandon and overgrown. Finally the drone reached the edges of the city, the display showing a dense forested border surrounding the devastation. At the edge of the forest a massive wall came into view, its top edge rivaling the height of even the tallest trees until the view from the other side appeared as though the entire circle was pristine wilderness, and every inch of it was covered by security cameras.
Suddenly a bright flash streaked across the sky.
“What the hell?” Tessa hissed at the same time as Caleb grunted and tore his goggles off his face.
“Agh!” Caleb shouted before adding, “Drone’s gone.”
“What?” Gideon growled.
“Something shot it down.” Tessa offered, “Did you see that flash, whatever it was it was instant.”
“What do you mean?” Gideon asked.
“It crossed at least a mile of sky in less than a second boss.” Tessa intoned. “Laser maybe?”
“Did you see that wall?” Caleb asked softly as a portion of the horizon was suddenly bathed in vivid light where the drone had been flying. “From what I saw before they shot me down they’ve got some pretty heavy security out there.”
“Yeah, I saw the systems highlight on screen.” Rook said softly.
“At least your tech works.” Gideon encouraged, “Next trip we bring the stealth drone, we need to find a way across that wall.”
“Looked like city outside.” Caleb suggested. “Whatever happened in here clearly didn’t reach out there.”
“We aren’t going anywhere near it this trip,” Gideon frowned, “time for some new mission parameters. We have five days left before we have to be back, lets scour this city for information. Search these empty buildings for whatever you can find,” he paused, “or whoever. Then we bring it all back to help us plan the next mission.” He looked around the group before adding, “Clear?”
A chorus of “hooah” came in reply as the team paired off and headed out.
The team spent the next several days scouring the city for anything that might be helpful in figuring out who these people are, what sort of capabilities they have and what exactly happened here. Their searching was not in vain. By the end of the five days they had amassed so much bounty that it took an extra two hours just to figure out how to pack it all up for transport.
Finally the day came to leave.
Gear and loot packed they headed back to the main building, and the portal home. The alley was silent still, the only movement being the papers and refuse blowing around in the wind. The door was shut, and locked.
“I got this.” Garret fished a large flat bar from his bag and slipped it through the crack in the door. “Took some time to figure this out before we left.”
He slid his metal through the crack along the latch side of the door and upward until they heard a low click sound. Garret crouched a little in order to put leg his strength into the work, he hauled the bar upward and gave a sharp tug at the top. Another click and the door popped open enough for Kira to get her fingers into the gap and tug it open all the way. The lobby was silent with no heat signatures showing up in their HUD’s so the team swiftly moved through the halls back to the hive where the doors were located. Seeing stairs in the corner Tessa quickly moved down to the next level and began the trek around the square to the earth door they had see before.
“This one.” She said as she ran her hand along the bottom of the label plaque as she breathed. “Earth one six eight.”
Once the team had gathered she gently pressed the button next to the door frame, the light pulsed softly as the door slid up into the wall. The room was empty and silent, strewn with long tables that were filled with rock, soil and mineral samples in various states of examination.
“What the hell?” Caleb exclaimed as he stepped inside and the door slid closed.
“Clearly not all doors lead to a tortured human,” Gideon said softly, “noted.”
“Ready?” Kira asked as she flattened herself against the wall next to the exit door.
The door cracked open.
They found themselves in a cavern identical to the first one, enormous, cube shaped and no visible way out except a small dark spot in the wall near the roof.
“Now how the hell do we get up there without climbing ropes?” Julian was studying the top of the rock wall in the distance.
“What’s that?” Rachel was pointing toward a barely visible shaft of continuum lattice that ran from the top all the way to the base of the cliff where they were standing.
Gideon walked over to the shaft. The moment his feet touched the ground next to it a large azure disk lit up on the ground.
“Elevator?” he asked.
The team all moved next to him onto the platform.
Shudder…
The platform shook under their feet as it began lifting them toward the cave entrance.
“Nice!” Devon smiled.
“This one must still be in use,” Elena offered, “these people have to have some way to reach the samples they are studying.”
The cave was straight, level and smooth, its walls looking more manufactured than natural with a floor swept clean of any dirt or debris. They walked for a couple hours in silence before anyone spoke, each person wondering if they would ever be able to find the way out.
Another hour passed in silence.
“We don’t even know where we are, much less which way is out.” Jaxson said.
“You’re correct soldier.” Gideon announced. “But we don’t have much choice in the matter and I haven’t seen any side tunnels, so I’d say we are going the right way for now.”
“I wonder.” Elena said suddenly as she wriggled out of her pack and started digging through it.
“What do you have in mind Rook?” Gideon asked.
“Sophia gave me one of her transponders.” Elena pulled a small black box out and began screening a stake into it. “She said the range is untested,” she added as she connected a cable to her laptop and pressed the button on top of the box, “but it’s worth a try.”
The light on the box lit blue for a few seconds as the team held it’s collective breath.
Green!
“Contact!” Elena hissed.
Back in Nevada Sophia was sitting at her desk pouring over the data streaming across her monitor, Victor sat next to her clacking away on his keyboard.
“Hey Sam.” Sophia shouted. “Do we know anyone in Arizona?”
“Where?” Sam asked.
“Arizona.” She said, “I’ve got a transponder signal coming from somewhere under Tuscon.”
“A what?” Sam was puzzled.
“One of my transponders just came on line.” Sophia explained.
Suddenly her messaging app popped up on her computer screen.
“Hello?”
“What the…” Sophia whispered as she typed.
“Who is this and how do you have my tech?” Sophia clicked the send button.
“Rook here,” the reply appeared, “back but lost, long story. Where are we?”
“It’s them!” Sophia shouted excitedly.
“Tuscon AZ.” she typed back.
“Can’t find the way out of the cave,” Elena’s reply scrolled out onto her screen, “will explain later but in need of help.”
“OMW” Sophia said it out loud as she typed.
“Tuscon?” Sam asked, “Your device has got some serious range!”
Mark Sr was already on his phone, “The plane will be ready when we get to the airport.”
The five of them barely looked up from laptop screens filled with the data the technology had gathered, each trying to find the fastest way to retrieve the insertion team.
“We’ve hit another cluster of side tunnels,” the message flashed onto Sophia’s phone screen, “which way?”
“Stay in the main tunnel, straight forward.” Sophia typed out, “The clusters of side tunnels all lead back the other way and dead end.”
“Odd.” Gideon sighed as he read the message out loud. “Why would all these tunnels just dead end?”
“Perhaps,” Tessa started as she turned to look back the direction they had come from, “it’s to confuse people coming from the surface to keep them from being found out.”
Looking back into the tunnel the clusters of side tunnels turned into a honeycomb maze of misdirection, side chutes splitting off in so many directions it was impossible to determine which one they had come from.
“Brilliant!” Rachel said. “Impossible to travel back to the machine without getting so lost that you never make it.”
“But how do they find the right way?” Elena began adjusting the filters and cameras in her goggles as she searched the darkness.
“Has to be something.” Tessa agreed as she followed Elena’s lead.
“There!” Elena exclaimed. “Check filter f-twenty two, theres a slight blue glow coming through the main cave, look ahead.”
“And now we have our map.” Gideon said with a smile. “Follow that trail.”
On the plane Mr. Halvorsen sighed with frustration, “Every tunnel seems to lead right into this loop, or spiral looking cave under Weavers Peak in the Superstition Mountains, then it just goes around in this circle.”
“I see it,” Sophia said softly as she inspected her screen, “have you tried tilting the axis?”
“Tilt the axis.” Mark Sr laughed at himself. “Should have remembered that one.”
Mark Sr clicked his mouse and dragged it across the screen. As the image shifted the linear spiral pattern extended upward toward the top of the mountain. Sophia’s eyes lit up as she furiously tapped away on her phone screen.
Suddenly the cabin was filled with the captain’s voice, “Good afternoon folks, Captain Mike from the flight deck here—we’ve just begun our descent into Tucson. We're about ten minutes out from KTUS, expecting a smooth touchdown on Runway 11L. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin, and everyone please secure your large electronics and ensure personal devices are switched over to airplane mode.”
“Shit!” Sophia hissed. “I think I found a way for them to get out, look.” She ran her fingertip over the computer screen and stopped at a small ledge near the base of the mountain. “The main spiral has all these small side chutes, but this one looks like it connects to a mine under a town called Weaver.”
“There’s lots of copper mines in the area,” Victor offered, “it’d make sense.”
“We’ll need a helicopter to access that without a weeks long hike.” Mark Sr said softly. “I’ll make a call.”
The helicopter was already whining it’s twin engines to life as the five stepped out of the airplane into the stifling heat of summer in Arizona. Mark Sr had ordered a twin rotor helicopter capable of carrying everyone with whatever gear they had while leaving plenty of room for the haul they were sure to be bringing with them.
“Good evening everyone,” the intercom on the Super Puma helicopter crackled to life as the group buckled their seat belts, “Looks like a clear skies, flight time should be around an hour.”
The flight was quick, the twin rotor aircraft cutting through the night at a brisk one hundred eighty miles per hour with effortless grace. Mark Sr stood and walked to the flight deck as they approached the mountain to help find a suitable landing zone.
“Looks like a little meadow over there.” He pointed out the right side of the helicopter, “Does it look big enough?”
“It’ll be tight sir, but I can make it happen for you.” The pilot smiled. “You must’ve paid the boss through the nose to get him to send us up on such short notice, it’s the least I can do.”
The helicopter made one pass over the meadow before turning in a tight pivot and settling into the long grass.
“Might as well shut her down,” Mark Sr called out as he made his way toward the ramp at the back of the helicopter, “no idea how long we’ll be waiting. I trust Dean told you?”
“He sure did sir!” the pilot shouted back with a laugh. “Take your time, I brought a movie!”
“How long do you think?” Mark Jr asked as Sophia turned her laptop back on.
“The last time they posted up,” Sophia shrugged, “would’ve put them about five hours out.” She paused as she studied her screen, “But that was three hours ago, and they made amazing time between the last two messages, so I’m not really sure.”
The team located the entrance to the mine, long since abandon and overgrown it hid itself in a cluster of chaparral and scrub oaks that looked like they had seen too many droughts.
Victor touched the door and a shudder ran down his spine, “Continuum Lattice.”
“What?” Sam exclaimed. “Out here?”
“They use it to make everything,” Victor explained, “after a while you start to recognize the slight vibration feeling it puts off.”
“Looks like a key card lock” Sophia frowned. “I don’t guess our card will work on it.”
She pressed her key card against the frame of the door.
Nothing.
“What the hell do we do now?” Sam asked.
“They use snap together edges to connect everything.” Victor started inspecting the door frame around the card pad, “Here!”
Victor shoved the tip of a knife into a barely visible groove along the frame and twisted the blade.
POP!
A Small square of lattice popped loose from the door frame. Victor carefully handed it to Sophia with one hand as he held the card reader with the other.
“Flashlight please.” He said softly, tugging the small square out of the frame.
He pulled at one of the fiber optic connectors until it slid out of its socket before shining the flashlight into it and flickering it on and off.
“Just have to find the right combination,” he said with a smile, “like picking a safe, you just have to know what to feel for.”
He made room on the fiber for Sophia to pinch it with her fingertips, she smiled.
“See?” Victor pecked a kiss on her cheek, “Now we fine tune…” he paused, “Viola!”
The door slid down into the floor as a cold wind hit them in the face like the mountain finally exhaling after a long breath.